


there's a time and a place to die

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Demon!Tony, M/M, angel!Steve, sort of supernatural fusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story where inner demons are very literal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta'd.

His real name is actually Anthony, the Italian who traded his soul for the greatest engineering mind the world has ever seen (so suck on that, Da Vinci), so it's fitting that the stillborn he hides in has the same name.

-

The war in hell was long and hard and Anthony picked the wrong side. Now he has to hide, and there's nowhere in hell where he can do that, so he escapes to the surface and breathes life into an already dead baby.

(He chooses a baby because a possession of an adult will be too conspicuous and challenging, trying to fight with a subconscious as well as keep a personality to fight suspicion.)

The father, Howard, looks too worn down to be having children, and the mother, Maria, is too beautiful to be married to him. But there they are, Anthony's new surrogate parents.

-

He knows the reason why Maria is closed-off from her own child, he fully understands why she gasps in fear not approval when his eyes start focusing too early on, or when he stays silent and calculating when he should probably screaming. He's not her baby, she knows that (though she can't explain it) and he knows that.

But he still resents her for it, even though he can't explain why.

-

It's a little worrying at about the five year mark when he tries to get out of the body and he can't, like there's a padlock on the exit door. But he pushes it to the back of his mind and decides that he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Besides, this body is safe. Going non-corporeal would be very much unsafe. f

-

The first time he tastes scotch through his new lips is also the first time Howard hits him, a slap across the cheek for stealing the alcohol.

His skin smarts and he burns with rage, but in a little boy's body, there's nothing he can do but seethe and hate his eyes for watering at the humiliation and pain.

-

The family butler, Jarvis, becomes the only friend Anthony makes in his childhood.

(There's another boy, Timothy, but he shoots himself on his fifteenth birthday, and at his funeral, Anthony makes a silent promise to meet him down in hell).

He's not sure what it is, because God knows demons don't actually get lonely, but Anthony starts spending more and more time with the old man, laughing at his sly jokes and helping him with dinner.

So when Jarvis dies, Anthony immortalises him in an AI. It's kind of better and worse at the same time.

-

Without realising it, Anthony becomes Tony.

-

Howard loves to talk about Captain America. He has a cupboard full of memories of the man, the good man, and Tony hates him, hates his heroic, chiseled features, and his ideals, and the things he did just for the sake of being good. It causes yet another split between the two Stark men, as if their pride and stubbornness wasn't enough.

-

He reaches adulthood.

_

He sleeps with women, and men, and it feels great. He has to control himself, though, because sometimes, when lost in ecstasy, he'll get lazy and his eyes will flicker black. He's never been caught though, but it never hurts to be cautionary.

Howard and Maria die in an air plane crash and he actually feels...upset? At the least, shocked. He loses himself in alcohol and sex to mask the very thought, and everyone lets him because they think he’s just another spoilt brat grieving.

Obadiah takes over the business - Tony couldn’t care less. His body turns thirty, and he’s losing the motivation to stay hidden in the shadows. So he hides in plain sight - if the demons find him, then they’ll find him.

He designs a missile, one day, because he’s watching the news and sees a report of heat-seeking ones, and all he can think is that he can do better. He doesn’t do anything with it, but then Obadiah finds it when he comes down into the workshop, and suddenly Tony is head of R and D.

He’s good at his job, putting all of his experience from building weapons down in hell to good use.

He gets an assistant. Her name is Pepper Potts, and of course he tries to sleep with her, but she’s too good, far too good, for him, and they both know it. 

He makes a friend of Rhodey, and he has no idea why: why he calls him up just to discuss the Formula One results, why he actually needs the companionship Rhodey provides, why he even comes up with the fucking nickname of Rhodey in the first place. When people talk about friends they made in college, Tony scorns at them, before realising he has one too. It's quite disconcerting.

Everything’s going great.

-

And then Afghanistan happens.

-

He wakes up, and he thinks that he’s finally been found, the demons have got him, that his skin is going to ripped from his flesh and his bones are going to be set on fire.

But it’s just terrorists, and a man who only hurts him to save him. It’s a novel concept to Tony, and it’s what he blames the gratitude and emotion he feels for Yinsen.

And he has a night light in his chest. The arc reactor. He’s actually kind of thrilled by it - he’d been dreaming of something like it for years, back when he was still human, and now, not only is it actually real, but it’s his, it’s in his body.

He gets out of that awful cave in a rain of bullets and fire and Yinsen dies, and he can’t understand why it hurts so much, watching his eyes shut for the final time.

-

He has an epiphany. Why the hell should he be making weapons? What’s the fucking point? He’s been making weapons for six hundred years, and he can’t be bothered to do it for six hundred more. They made him the greatest engineer, not just the greatest weapons designer.

So he calls the press conference, and he argues with Obadiah and Pepper and Rhodey. He even argues with JARVIS. 

And he builds Iron Man.

Iron Man is _amazing_. He can’t believe he hasn’t made it before. The suit is red and gold, colours of fire and greed and hell. He flies in it - he actually flies. He destroys all of his old weapons, travelling around the world to do so, as the ultimate ‘Fuck You’ to every demon and human who’s made him build them.

-

Obadiah turns out to not only be evil, but also a temporary host to a demon. It’s a surprising and tiring twist of events that ends in a final confrontation on the glass rooftop.

“He’s screaming in here,” Obadiah’s voice says. “Only got into this meatsuit a few weeks ago.”

The suit’s helmet has been ripped off, and one of the gauntlets has fallen down onto the street. Tony is probably going to die, right here, right now.

“Who are you?” Tony shouts above the roar of the wind. “Crowley? Meg? Beezle?”

The Iron Monger shakes with cruel laughter. “Oh, Anthony. You're not _that_  important. And anyway. Darling. I would have thought you’d recognise your own crossroads demon?”

Tony feels the blood drain from his face. “Azal.” The memories of scrabbling in the dirt, of putting the box in the ground, of making that cursed deal, flood back to him. All with the red eyes, smiling and purring.

“It’s personal, honey. That’s why Crowley sent me.” Azal taunts. “I’m the one who recruited you, after all. I was so hurt when you chose the traitor’s side.”

“Traitors?” Tony says, all false bravado and sarcasm. “In hell?”

“You’ve been in that meatsuit for a while, now.” Azal ignores him. “I think you can’t get out. You’re stuck. So, Anthony, tell me, what happens when I set that skin on fire?”

-

Tony wins that battle. (Thanks to Pepper. Which is very weird, because she could've saved herself a real lot of trouble by running away. He gives her a bonus and leaves it at that.)

He buries Obadiah’s body with Azal still inside (he can’t exorcise him back to hell because then everyone will know that Anthony is pretty easy prey, even in the armour), still trapped in the Iron Monger suit, deep beneath the earth, underneath a pentagram. Then he orders a ship container filled with salt over the body. And then he falls asleep next to it, because he’s exhausted and scared and he doesn’t want to go back to hell, not when he’s having so much fun.

He finds himself sobbing, dry because he can't cry, croaking and hoarse heaving from his throat because he really, truly doesn't want to go back. He wants to stay human, he wants to stay  _Tony_.

Pepper rips him a new one when he gets back to the mansion. So does Rhodey. He hugs them both, and then goes to his workshop and tries to mathematically work out why he’s suddenly been infected with human emotions.

-

The press conference happens. Tony figures he may as well tell everyone he's Iron Man - it's about a thousand times less dangerous than telling everybody his other secret, and anyway, he wants the recognition.

It's kind of ironic, he thinks as he reads the newspapers the following day, that a demon is now being called a hero.

-

The palladium poisoning sneaks up on him. As do Hammer, and Whiplash, and Fury, and Natasha. He saves himself. Howard and Fury can go fuck themselves if they think he should be feeling gratitude to them.

(Natasha is an interesting surprise, however. Tony kind of thinks she'd do well in hell - her hair would match the flames erupting around her, at least.

The kiss with Pepper is as well. The repressed anger in Natasha's eyes when he flies Pepper and him back down, like she knows Pepper is too good for him, however, isn't.) _  
_

-

Then there's the Avengers. Seriously, if Fury didn't get the message before: fuck off.


	2. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And a guardian angel may not be too far away.

Stephen is an obedient angel, a good one. When Michael, the leading lieutenant of Heaven, tells him to observe the foul demons in their foul civil war, he does so, because that’s his job, his duty.

But he gets injured while passing through, hit by some cursed missile from the demons’ best weapon expert, and it hurts like fire and salt and god almighty-

And he floats, floats, floats.

-

His eyes open up into the world, looking up at a blond, bright-eyed woman, and for a second, he remembers a glimpse of gold and white wings. Then his instincts take over and he bawls for his mother. She holds him close and whispers kisses and love against his forehead.

-

His father is a drunk and a bully. He hits Steve’s mother, hits her hard, and shouts loud enough to make the neighbours raise their eyebrows knowingly when his mother walks by with a black eye and a scared stare.

Steve grows up scared and helpless; he’s scrawny and asthmatic and not many of the other kids will play with him, like if they shove him too hard when they’re playing tag, he’ll shatter into a million pieces.

He wants to be angry. Angry at his father for being a coward and a drunk, and angry at the world for giving him such rotten luck. But somehow he isn’t. Like he doesn’t have that kind of capability for pure unadulterated rage.

He grows up smart, though. He reads novels, sitting in the corner of the bookshop where his mother works and reading adventures and myths and legends until his eyes hurt. The man who owns the store is kind, and will often come over to ruffle Steve’s gold hair and give him a square of chocolate, as if that’ll help his stick-out ribs.

-

Steve’s mother calls him her cherub, sometimes. He assumes it’s her way about making him feel better when his cheeks rose from the littlest of exercise, or when she forgets to cut his hair and it grows out slightly wavy.

(How on earth was he supposed to spot the irony?)

****-****

**** His father dies first. Steve honestly can’t remember the official cause of death; maybe he should, but all he knows is the relief and the grief that swamps over him when the policeman knocks on the door.

**** -

**** He makes friends with Bucky soon after that. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky’s father is dead, too – came back from the war and died of something that neither of them can pronounce or spell.

**** Bucky likes adventures as well, but he prefers to live them, rather than read about them.

**** (Steve’s sure he’d like to live them as well, if he weren’t so scared of swallowing the wrong type of air and coughing up his lungs.)

**** Bucky has a big family – big brothers whose mattresses Bucky and Steve steal dirty magazines from under, and little sisters who whine when Steve won’t promise to marry them. Bucky’s mother is big and boisterous – gives Steve bread with his soup and smacks Bucky round the head when he wants more butter.

**** -

**** Steve’s mother dies a month before Steve starts at art college (he’s gonna be the one to draw book covers on his favourite books, draw all his favourite heroes in bold colours and thick lines).

**** She gets sick. Her pale skin turns even paler, and her hair falls out if you even so much as look at it funny. The doctor comes to see her, but he doesn’t stay long. 

**** Steve stays by her side as she finally lets out her last breath, a cross around her neck and a priest’s words still hanging in the air.

**** -

**** Bucky joins the army.

**** Steve tries to.

**** (He also tries the marines, and the air force, and in one memorable occasion, the army cooks.)

**** -

**** Steve starts picking fights. He feels like a soldier – why does nobody else see it? Why does no one else see how much he craves it, deep in his belly and at the back of his throat? He feels like his life is empty, like he’s just waiting for something.

**** -

**** And then something does happen.

**** -

**** Erskine is a gift from God, Steve is sure of it. He, at least, sees the soldier in Steve – promotes him to Super Soldier. When the needles are pushing into Steve’s skin, making him swell into something stronger, faster, better, he sees a fluttering behind his eyelids, a gold spark of something untouchable.

**** -

**** Peggy is strong and capable and...and very pretty. When Steve first sees her punch someone, he falls a little bit in love.  

**** -

**** Steve goes in to save Bucky without even thinking twice about it – Peggy gets Howard to fly Steve in and he feels a rush of something when he’s parachuting down – kind of like flying.

**** He saves Bucky from that awful room, and about a hundred other from those evil cages. They all follow him back to camp, even though he must look a complete prat with his bright colours and his fake helmet. When Bucky cheers him – Bucky, the one who Steve so often looked up to – Steve feels like he’s finally doing what he was born to do.

**** So, naturally, pretty soon after that everything goes to hell.

**** -

Bucky falls.

**** -

**** Grieving isn’t enough to describe the hole that Steve feels every time he breathes in and out. Peggy tries to help, and in some far off place in Steve’s mind, he appreciates it, but right now, he can’t get past the pit that’s formed inside of him.

**** He starts praying again. He’s not sure what for – he borrows a Bible from one of the men, and he tries to remember all that his mother taught him, kneeling on hard church floors.

**** He still goes on missions, but he doesn’t feel the same glory as he did before. He doesn’t feel like a hero, or much of a soldier, just a man going through the motions.

**** Though he has to admit that punching some Nazis does help somewhat.  

**** -

**** Steve starts having weird dreams. Flashing and spurts of...something. He’s not sure what. Lots of pure colours: whites and greens and blues and pinks.

**** And gold. Always gold.

**** -

**** Then he falls, too.

**** -

**** He kisses Peggy goodbye – he loses his mind for a split second, and then he’s back to the mission: jumping onto the plan, punching this Hydra agent and that one, until he makes it to the cockpit.

**** The comparison between Red Skull and the Devil is pretty easy to make, so Steve doesn’t waste too much time on it.

**** He defeats Red Skull, throwing him out into the ocean along with that damn glowing cube, but it’s too late. He radios in, and puts Peggy’s photo on the dashboard, and he flies the plane down, down, down.

 -

 He hits the icy water and doesn’t have time to drown or freeze or think about dying – he blacks out.

**** -

**** _“Don’t worry, my dear, dear Stephen. You’ve done your duty well, and in the next life, you will be rewarded.”_

 


	3. Tony

Tony's in a bad place when Coulson arrives with the file. He's dating Pepper, but he feels guilty every day, though he's too selfish to actually break up with her. Rhodey is deployed but won't tell him where. And his contacts have gone silent, his werewolves and his vampires and his ghosts, who should _not_ be going silent unless they're dead or they've turned against him. Neither option helps him sleep at night. On top of that, his company is trying to get back into weapons, which is not an option, and the reporters are trying to slit his throat if it’ll make a good story.

 So when Coulson shows up, recruiting him, he puts on a smile, though he has half a mind to break his neck with one twist of his hand. And he goes to the helicarrier, without telling Pepper. She sends him a text telling him exactly what she thinks of that.

-

He walks in to the meeting room, and raises his eyebrows at the group of people gathered there.

He recognises Natasha - her cat suit is a little different - and Fury, and Coulson and Maria. They’re all wearing similar uniforms, which actually makes Tony a little bit angry. He can’t pinpoint why.

There’s another with the same uniform: he’s a guy, who Tony vaguely recognises from the file Coulson gave him, detailing the members of the Avengers (supposedly, there’s five of them, including Tony). Robin Hood or something, what does Tony care. 

Then there’s Thor, who is everything his file makes him out to be: six foot something with muscles to rival professional WWE wrestlers, and weird kind of armour, with symbols and marks that look like something out of Lord of the Rings.

And there’s Bruce Banner - Tony actually likes this guy. Someone who can actually explain string theory as well as turning into a giant green monster? Yes please.

But there’s someone else. Someone who certainly wasn’t in the file Coulson handed to Tony, someone with neatly party blonde hair and muscles almost the size of Thor’s. He’s pretty - pretty enough to make something inside of Tony stir, but he quickly quenches it down with the guilt inspired by the memory of Pepper.

 Then, like a switch being turned on, just as Fury says, “Ah, finally, Stark has arrived,” Tony remembers that face.

 “Captain America?” He says, at the same times as the guy says:

 “Stark?”

 Tony turns to Fury. “I am not working in your boy band, Fury. Especially not with a zombie.”

 “Zombie?” The Capstain repeats, frowning. He turns to Coulson. “I don’t-”

 Coulson murmurs something to him, which Tony doesn’t hear because Fury says to Tony, “He was frozen. Now he’s not. Can we move on?”

 “No we cannot,” Tony spits. Hatred is boiling inside of him, already bubbling and simmering from the past few months. He’s well aware he’s making a fuss, and that they’re all staring at him like he’s a kid throwing a toy out of his pram. But there’s a feeling like bile rising up in him.

 A part of the reaction is leftover from Howard’s lectures and preaching, about how Tony should look up to the good, noble Captain if he wanted to be a better person.

 But the rest of it, the larger part, is a little harder to explain. Because he can’t control this knee jerk reaction, deep in his ( _hah!_ ) soul, to hate Rogers with a complete and utter blood red passion.

 Basically, good people bring Tony out in hives. It's a reaction shared by most demons, in his defence.

 He has to get out of there before his eyes go black and he starts hissing at all of them.

 Fury seems to see Tony twitching to leave, and barks at him, “Sit down, Stark.”

 Tony’s jaw sets, but he sits down obediently, if only to prove to Fury that he can, that he’s not as much of a loose cannon as Fury thinks.

 Then he pauses.

 “You know what, nope.” He stands up again and walks out of there.

 Fuck them all sideways with a broom handle.

 -

 He stays in his garage sulking. But then a few hours later, he turns on the news, and it turns out there’s some aliens invading who are slightly more evil than E.T.

 So he suits up and flies out straight through the wall (another text from Pepper - this one in caps lock) and starts blasting the aliens out of the sky.

 And then it’s just pure instinct to shout out a warning to Clint when he flies past the rooftop he’s perched on: “Legolas, on your six!” And it’s spur-of-the-moment to land down next to Thor and go back to back with him.

And it’s obviously a natural progression to pick Natasha up and drop her where she directs. And if he’s helped those three, then it’s only fair he helps the Hulk where he’s about to be buried under a building if he keeps punching that spot.

 Seriously, it’s _not_ a big deal.

 Such a not big deal that when Tony actually realises he’s just fought, down on the ground, using Rogers’s shield to both their advantage, predicting the Captain’s moves before he even does them, he totally doesn’t freak out. In fact, this just proves how much he’s not thinking about what he’s doing.

 -

 Being a team player on the battlefield does not mean you’ll be a team player in a domestic situation.

 So Tony’s not sure why he invites the Avengers to live in Stark tower after the battle. Maybe some kind of post-adrenaline-high.

 It doesn’t matter why, anyway - at least that’s what he thinks for the first six months - because they don’t move in. Bruce goes to China, Natasha and Clint go back sitting on Fury’s lap or whatever, Thor goes back to Asgard, and the Captain goes somewhere. Tony doesn’t care where Rogers goes, whatever, shut up Pepper.

 But then about seven months after the Chitauri, Thor shows up on Tony’s doorstep.

 “I have arrived to take up your offer!” Thor says boisterously, already walking inside Tony’s house (Tony regrets adding all of their DNA to JARVIS’s security systems). “Now, pray tell, where do you keep your pop tarts?”

 Clint arrives a little bit after Thor, with a quiver-shaped suitcase. “‘Sup,” he nods at Tony. “I heard the frat house was open.”

 Tony doesn’t say anything about all the rooms that have been specially designed for each Avenger for about three months now, and luckily, none of them do either.

 Natasha seems to be a package deal with Clint, so she arrives next, with slightly longer hair and a single rucksack. When Tony asks her about it, she raises an eyebrow and says, “Spies travel light.” Tony thinks she’s joking. Maybe. He’s not sure.

 Bruce only turns up after five voicemails where Tony basically whines and pesters and nearly blackmails him into coming.

 -

 “Everyone else is here!”

 “Is Steve there?”

 “Steve? Oh, Captain America. Um, no. I think he’s too busy jacking off on the Constitution.”

 Bruce hangs up on him.

 -

 So everyone’s here.

 (Except Rogers. Which is a good thing. Seriously, fuck off, Rhodey, and take your lectures about team cohesiveness somewhere else.)

 -

 But then Rogers actually turns up. They both stand there for a moment, like neither of them want to budge.

 Eventually, Rogers says, “Come on, Tony. I need to be where my team is. I know we didn’t make a great first impression, but I feel-”

 “Yeah, fine, fine, sure.” Tony quickly waves him in. Anything to stop him from talking about his feelings.

 -

 Tony probably isn’t a very good demon. He never was, really. Sure, he tortured souls down there - that was his job, otherwise he would’ve been the one under the knife - but he never enjoyed it like some of the demons, like Beezle and Mortheus and Evith.

 That’s his explanation for why he starts actually laughing at Clint’s stories over breakfast, or why he finds himself actively trying to cheer Bruce up, or why he deliberately starts buying nine kinds of herbal tea for Natasha to drink when she can’t sleep.

 Anyway, it’s all part of his cover. If it looks and acts like a human, it probably is a human, right?

 He still can’t quite get the hang of being nice to Rogers though. He sort of tries. When he’s away from Rogers, or when he’s fighting alongside him, it’s easy to think, ‘hey, maybe I should be nicer to the guy.’ But in practice, it’s much harder than that.

 It’s a knee-jerk reaction to be mean to the guy - something about him riles Tony up. He can’t explain it. Not even the memories of Howard explain how much he hates the guy.

 -

 One of his monitors is beeping red then white then blue. That’s code for something, Tony’s sure, but he’s been working for thirty straight hours trying to get these reports proofread, and it takes him a little while to catch up.  Once he remembers what that monitor is checking, he bolts out of his seat and nearly runs to the elevator.

 But it’s too late.

 It opens, and Natasha and Rogers are standing there. So she’s the one who brought him down there - she must’ve seen it on her first invasion.

 Tony has to physically fight his eyes from going black from rage.

 Natasha actually looks a little regretful. “Tony, he had to see why-”

 “You had no fucking right,” he says coldly to her. He’s not daring to look Rogers in the eye.

 “I had no idea, Tony,” Rogers is looking at Tony with something like pity, and Tony wants to punch him, repeatedly, because of it. “I mean, I didn’t know that Howard had become so obsessed with my memory.”

 The red, white, and blue code is the security code for The Captain America Memorabilia room.

 Tony closes his eyes and pinches his nose. He breathes, counting from one to ten. Hell was worse, he tells himself. At least they’re not boiling your skin off with salt water.

 “I kept it because he wanted it donated to a museum,” Tony says slowly, still with his eyes closed - _keep them brown, not black, brown not black_ \- because he feels it’s important to keep it clear that he does not have the same obsession as Howard did. “If you show anyone, tell anyone, I will have the room burnt down with you in it.”

 And then he walks away because he physically can’t keep his eyes from blinking ink black.

 -

 They do some more fighting and living together and Avenger-ing.

 Rogers tries to talk to Tony about whatever, but Tony’s usually pretty good at shutting down any kind of conversation that goes deeper than, ‘Hey, how’s the weather? I’d say it’s freezing. Heh.’

 -

 Pepper breaks up with him. Says about how she loves him, always will, but it’s too much work to be everything for him. Too much work to be with him, she means, but doesn’t say.

 Tony gets it. Whatever, he’s a fucking demon, of course he’s not going to fall in love. He didn’t even fall in love when he was human, from what he can remember - too busy building and designing and dreaming.

 But it takes him a week to realise that he’s actually moping. Sure, Bruce has been nicer than usual, and Thor has been saying stuff like ‘Love will always blossom in the most unlikely of gardens!’ and Rogers has been deliberately not daring to say anything to Tony.

 But Tony thought they were just expecting him to be sad, not that he actually was.

 How weird.

 -

It's not a big deal, but Tony hasn't been able to use his demon powers for a while. Probably since before that whole ordeal with Whiplash.

At first he thought he was just out of practice, having not snapped someone in half from a mile away for a while. But it's becoming more and more apparent that not only is he stuck in this body, he's lost most of his demon skills.

He can still do little party tricks though, like closing windows from across the room and making the flicker off.

He's flipping a coin morosely in the dark with just his mind when Rogers staggers in like a zombie.

"Tony?" He yawns and then blinks in confusion. "Are you flipping that coin?"

Tony suddenly realises he didn't stop the coin flipping, and he quickly let's it fall to the floor. "Uh, I'm testing some new technology," he lies.

Rogers looks too sleepy to care whether Tony's lying or not. "Okay. Night."

"Goodnight," Tony replies absent-mindedly.

Rogers gives him a confused look, but Tony is too busy lost in his own thoughts to really process it.

-

Rogers gets injured in the field. Badly.

Not that Tony cares or anything, he's a Super Soldier, he’ll be fine, but it sure looks painful.

And then, over the private comm between Rogers and Tony that Tony sometimes opens to jibe Rogers on his technique, Tony hears, ‘Holy fuck of a bitch! Shit-jesus-holy-god that hurts!”

Tony almost crashes into a building from shock.  

-

After that, Tony starts observing Rogers more closely. In his efforts to hate Rogers, he hadn’t really taken any notice of him, simply assuming he was as perfect as Tony had always assumed.

But actually, the Captain is far from perfect.

He swears. Quite a bit. And Tony catches him cheating in video games, playing up the ‘Oh I’m so out-dated what does this button do?’ and then changing the games settings as soon as Clint goes to the toilet or the kitchen.

Tony’s impressed.

Rogers also has a tendency not to pay attention during mission briefs. Since Tony always phases out or plays around on his phone, he’s never noticed it before, but Rogers spends about ninety per cent of the time doodling, or looking into space, or, in one occasion, pull funny faces when Fury isn’t looking.

 It’s _amazing_.

 -

 Tony starts calling him Steve without even noticing it.

Steve, who’s actually funny and sarcastic and gets mad and gets upset. Steve, who can’t stand eggs too runny and will tell you so if you get them wrong. Steve, who feels guilty for skipping the channel when you’ve left the room but sees it as your own damn fault if he eats your food.

Tony still has to fight to be nice, sometimes. He still can't completely get rid of this weird feeling, like he's met Steve before in another life, one where they completely hated each other, but he gets a hell of a lot better at quashing it down. 

-

 “What are you watching?” Tony asks, flopping down on the couch next to Steve.

 Steve looks like he’s fighting a surprised expression at Tony’s arrival when he says, “Uh, I’m not really sure.” He twists his lips, like he’s deciding on something, and then he says determinedly, “Tony.”

 “Yeah-huh?”

 “You and I... I mean, you’ve been a lot less hostile recently. I don’t think I’ve changed any, but...”

 “You were wondering why.” Tony finishes. He’s not sure how to explain it to Steve; he can’t exactly say, ‘Though I am a minion of hell, now I now that sometimes you steal Thor’s pop tarts and blame it on Clint, I can now be nice to you.’ “Um. I had a major life evaluation?”

 “Uh huh,” Steve says disbelievingly. “Does this have something to do with me admitting Stark Tower wasn’t that bad? Because you know I was sorry about saying it was ugly.”

 “No, I- Wait, you called my Tower ugly?”

 -

 They... they become friends.

 It’s crazy, and Tony tries not to think about it too much. He knows it’s something to do with not seeing Steve so perfectly, which probably says a lot about his inferiority complex.

 -

 They’re sparring, and have been for quite some while. They’re both too competitive for their own good. Natasha and Clint have long left out of boredom, and Bruce has determinedly stayed out of the gym ever since Thor accidentally dropped a medicine ball on his foot. And Thor’s...somewhere. Either at Jane’s place or at Asgard, Tony can’t remember. Seriously, the guy travels more often than David Attenborough.

 Tony knows that Steve has been going easy on him, but he’s getting impatient and any minute now, Tony’s going to be flat on his back, Steve holding him down.

 Which, okay, wouldn’t be _such_ a bad position to be in, if Tony’s being totally honest. In a completely platonic way, Steve’s quite let-me-know-the-ways-I-would-tap-that hot.

 Anyway.

 Tony’s calculating the chance of getting Steve first. But he’s getting sloppy, his punches are being deflected much more often, and this probably isn’t a battle Tony’s going to win. Then again, those kinds of odds have never stopped him before.

 So he comes up with plan. He feints a jab to the right, which Steve falls for, and then he kicks upwards, sole straight against Steve’s stomach. Now, this usually would just be enough to slightly wind Steve. But Tony focuses all of his zen and energy and power into putting whatever ounce of demon _oomph_ into the kick.

 He may have underestimated exactly have much oomph he had.

 Because Steve goes flying – he lands on his back with a yelp, a few feet away.

 Tony freezes – time actually slows down – but then Steve lets out a groan and rolls over onto his side. Tony runs over, skidding to his knees next to him.

 “Oh my god, are you okay?” Tony reaches out a hand and Steve doesn’t flinch away; Tony doesn’t know why he was expecting him to.

 Steve lets out a chuckle, though it sounds a bit pained. “You didn’t break anything, don’t worry. But _geez_ , Tony, where’d you learn that?”

 Tony forces down the guilt. Demons don’t feel guilt. “Um, I’ve been training with Natasha a lot recently,” he lies.

 Steve grins. “I’ve got to learn that.”

 “I don’t know,” Tony teases, like he isn’t still slightly in shock. “She doesn’t teach it to just _anybody¸_ you know.”

 -

 So yeah. Tony, the _demon_ , who is _evil_ , is now on a team with people that he not only is friends with, but whom he _fights_ evil with.

 Irony is a bitch sometimes.


	4. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are good demons and there are bad demons. Ezith is either or both, depending on your definition.

Ezith would like to clarify that if she has to clear up Anthony’s goddamn messes once more, she’s going to march straight back to Crowley and hand her in resignation. She can go down a rank – let Beezle or someone handle the mess Anthony’s gotten himself into.

Honestly. Inventor’s are all the same – too wrapped up in their latest project to take notice of what’s actually happening.

Ezith picked the right side in the war, and she fought, and she earned respect, dammit. So why the everlasting fuck has she been reduced to possessing a stupid office clerk just to spy on Anthony?

She sits down in her host’s desk, and forces herself to smile politely as the bastard himself walks by. Tony Stark. ‘Entrepeneur’, it says on his door.She’d like to write something else there instead.

She listens in for an entire day, but nothing useful comes out of it. She can’t even prove it’s really Anthony, apart from recognising the arrogance in his voice.

So she bounds her body’s feet and hands in her apartment to make sure her host can’t escape, and she flicks the small metaphysical switch in the back of the body’s head to render her unconscious. Then she leaves the body, and lets her smoky essence drift to Stark tower.

She floats in through the ventilation and curses this realm for not allowing her the comfort of her own, battle-scarred and beautiful body.

She listens in.

There’s Anthony.

“Clint, have you seen Steve?”

“He’s downstairs, all nice and ready for your bromance to continue.” Another man. One of the other vigilantes, the one with the arrows. They could use a marksman like him down in hell – she’ll look into his destination when she gets back.

“Shut up – you should remember who pays for your video games.”

“Yeah, yeah. I bet Thor would buy me them if you didn’t.”

They’re teasing each other – like they’re friends. Anthony must be a better faker than Ezith assumed him to be.

She follows Anthony through the rooms, until he stops. Suddenly, she feels a rush of force, like she’s been mowed over by a truck (she would know, it’s not an unknown feeling). She’s gasping and everything feels raw and fresh and horrible.

She looks down through one of the grates, and has to squint as if staring into a flood light.

Then she sees it. Because Anthony has stopped in front of the other blonde, the patriot guy with a shield. She can see Anthony’s true form – all black and smoky – when she’s like this. She can see how Anthony looks at the man, all brightness and happiness blossoming in his darkness.

And she can see the blonde’s true form: light and gold and white feathers.

She starts cackling.

Because only Anthony could fool himself into believing himself in love with an angel.

Oh, Crowley is going to love this.


End file.
